SEC hides AIG bailout documents until 2018

posted at 12:15 pm on January 13, 2010 by Ed Morrissey

The Securities and Exchange Commission exists to enforce trading laws and ensure as much transparency as possible on Wall Street. The bailout of AIG made American taxpayers the majority stockholder in the insurance giant, with hundreds of billions of dollars flowing from Treasury to AIG, and then to … whom? Thanks to a strange decision by the SEC, we won’t know the details for another eight years:

It could take until November 2018 to get the full story behind the U.S. bailout of insurance giant American International Group (AIG.N) because of an action taken last year by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In May, the SEC approved a request by AIG to keep secret an exhibit to a year-old regulatory filing that includes some of the details on the most controversial aspect of the AIG bailout: the funneling of tens of billions of dollars to big banks like Societe Generale, Goldman Sachs (GS.N), Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) and Merrill Lynch.

The SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance, in granting AIG’s request for confidential treatment, said the “excluded information” will not be made public until Nov. 25, 2018, according to a copy of the agency’s May 22 order.

The SEC said the insurer had demonstrated the information in the exhibit, called Schedule A, “qualifies as confidential commercial or financial information.”

This follows on last week’s revelation by Bloomberg that current Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, at the time the chair of the New York Fed, instructed AIG to keep that information from the SEC itself:

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, then led by Timothy Geithner, told American International Group Inc. to withhold details from the public about the bailed-out insurer’s payments to banks during the depths of the financial crisis, e-mails between the company and its regulator show.

AIG said in a draft of a regulatory filing that the insurer paid banks, which included Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Societe Generale SA, 100 cents on the dollar for credit-default swaps they bought from the firm. The New York Fed crossed out the reference, according to the e-mails, and AIG excluded the language when the filing was made public on Dec. 24, 2008. The e-mails were obtained by Representative Darrell Issa, ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The New York Fed took over negotiations between AIG and the banks in November 2008 as losses on the swaps, which were contracts tied to subprime home loans, threatened to swamp the insurer weeks after its taxpayer-funded rescue. The regulator decided that Goldman Sachs and more than a dozen banks would be fully repaid for $62.1 billion of the swaps, prompting lawmakers to call the AIG rescue a “backdoor bailout” of financial firms.

“It appears that the New York Fed deliberately pressured AIG to restrict and delay the disclosure of important information,” said Issa, a California Republican. Taxpayers “deserve full and complete disclosure under our nation’s securities laws, not the withholding of politically inconvenient information.” President Barack Obama selected Geithner as Treasury secretary, a post he took last year.

This administration came to power on a promise of more transparency and open government. At the moment, we have a tax evader running Treasury who instructed AIG to keep its mouth shut in his previous job, and now apparently has the SEC continuing the same tactic. Meanwhile, American taxpayers have poured over $150 billion into AIG, supposedly to rescue it, only to find out that Geithner used AIG as a slush fund to capitalize other financial institutions.

Who chose the winners and the losers? We don’t know. The SEC won’t let us see the records.

How were these institutions chosen? We don’t know. The SEC won’t let us see the records.

What were the political connections between the winners and people like Geithner, Hank Paulson, and members of the Bush and Obama administrations? We don’t know. The SEC won’t let us see the records.

AIG only exists because of taxpayer funds. Its records should be as transparent as possible. Instead, the SEC has allowed them to make a special case for secrecy in the distribution of taxpayer dollars in a shady enterprise that looks as if it circumvented Congress in interventions. If we had a Congress instead of a supine rubber stamp for the Obama administration, they might show some interest in investigating the SEC, AIG, Geithner, and everyone connected to this.

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Oh c’mon. Now we all know this is the release date, 2 years after Obama would be out of office. Assuming he gets another term. Then he, and his cronies will all have a few years to arrange their flights from the U.S. to destinations unknown, and out of the reach of prosecutions.

What benefit can there be from sealing financial documents? I can understand a need to keep security documents concealed, but financial? If this becomes standard practice how will we ever hold our government and the fed accountable? It is completely unacceptable.

It only takes one Whistleblower with inside information to file a Qui Tam court action. If he has the documents and there is provable “waste, fraud or abuse” the filer can get up to 30% of the $$$ found. A billion or two might be enough to get one person to flip.

Like Ron Paul or not, his foreign policy is insane, but he has a passion for this subject and a GOP congress needs to unleash him. We need to start throwing some people in jail, and Geithner needs to be at the top of the list.

This actually falls in line with something I discussed this last weekend. The latest round of “extravagant bonuses” is being spun hard by the media and libs as people are going to be ticked at Wall Street.

My question is, though, to the average Schmoe in Middle America, is Wall Street the target of the anger, or is it the politicians, bailouts, and the corrupt system in general? I know I follow things too close and probably can’t get a good read on the general public, but I wonder which it is?

I may be a little off base here but, isn’t this public information due to the fact that “public funds” were used for the bailout? Shouldn’t this be disclosed under the “Freedom of Information Act”? Please advise.

Gina, that’s what I thought. I know *I* am really torqued at DC myself, and the Tea Party people are as well. Just wondering how much that has penetrated the ‘normal’ people, for lack of a better term.

Look..this is nothing new.
This is exactly why Timmy here was given the position he has.
Timmy was right in the middle of this corruption that lead to the financial crisis we are in so who better to put in charge to cover it up:

“We have only two things to say about Tim Geithner, who we do not know: A.I.G. and Lehman Brothers,” said Christopher Whalen of Institutional Risk Analytics. “Throw in the Bear Stearns/Maiden Lane fiasco for good measure,” he said.
“All of these ‘rescues’ are a disaster for the taxpayer, for the financial markets and also for the Federal Reserve System as an organization. Geithner, in our view, deserves retirement, not promotion.”

Ouch.

“He was in the room at every turn of the crisis,” said another executive who participated in several such confidential meetings with Mr. Geithner. “You can look at that both ways.”

Right smack in the middle.
This is no different than putting Jamie Gorelick on the 9/11 commission panel.
Got to cover those tracks…..:

Because the Fed conducts much of its work in secret, details about Geithner’s role in the Citigroup debacle remain hidden. But a review of publicly available records shows that the New York Fed, in a key period, relaxed oversight as Citigroup went on a risky spree…

Wow!!!!!
Relaxed oversight……
………..Kind of reminds me of Fannie/Freddie….
………But it was all Bush’s fault according to the “smart ones”.

In 2006, Citigroup’s issuances of collateralized debt obligations – securities in which mortgages and other debts are bundled and sold based on risk – grew to $40.9 billion, more than double the prior year. The number of subprime mortgages originated by Citigroup rose 85 percent that year, while other top originators had begun reducing subprime output, Fed data show…

Way to go Timmy!!!!
Hit one out of the park there.

Now I wonder who benefited from such corruption and back room deals??????????

Not just from the subprime corruption but also from the bailouts???????

Obama administration officials now working on fixing and regulating the financial system were beneficiaries of several million dollars in pay from Wall Street and private equity companies, it has been revealed.

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which can be found in Title 5 of the United States Code, section 552, was enacted in 1966 and provides that any person has the right to request access to federal agency records or information. All agencies of the United States government are required to disclose records upon receiving a written request for them, except for those records that are protected from disclosure by the nine exemptions and three exclusions of the FOIA. This right of access is enforceable in court.

“We had to do that, folks….It was a matter involving national security and you wouldn’t want us to do that now, would you? You just TRUST me. I wouldn’t do one single thing that might hurt this country. Honest. Now, let’s move on to ObamaCare. The legislation is full of blank pages because that’s where we fill in “stuff” after it’s passed. It’s a matter involving national security and you wouldn’t want us to do that now, would you? You really need to trust me. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt America.”

And so it goes. Yet another day of “As America Burns”, brought to you by Barack Obama – with a supporting cast of totally corrupt, professional politicians.

You know, if feel bad for the politicians and staffers in DC who really want to try to help the American People (of course, I assume there may be a few left). But in any case, when the People march on Washington, the People aren’t going to care whether you have a D or an R by your name. I say we need a ‘Reset’ button moment for the US Congress. I could give a rat’s *%^ about Obama.

At the moment, we have a tax evader running Treasury who instructed AIG to keep its mouth shut in his previous job

Gee, lets see, if he is a known “evader”…what are the chances he is “evading” something else? This is stupid, we all know something funny is going on yet all we do is talk about it. I want MOTHERF**KING ACTION to take place. Allowing these things to go on is pure and utter SUICIDE of a Nation.

Enough already, who do we have to put pressure on in order for them to start lobbing off heads and handing out orange jump suits? This is still a country of LAWS.

Shouldn’t this be disclosed under the “Freedom of Information Act”? Please advise.

milwife88 on January 13, 2010 at 12:43 PM

By filing a FOIA request a court challenge to the ruling might come about. Would need $$ to pursue: perhaps one of the “right-wing” legal groups formed to make such challenges would be the venue from which to start.

Hiding information concerning the largest taxpayer funded bailout of private businesses in the history of man during a wholesale economic disaster, caused by the very people who were involved in bringing it.

If AIG is involved, you know Dodd has his fingers in it as well. Was this agreement to cover Dodd’s butt for the next two election cycles?

Kafir on January 13, 2010 at 12:41 PM

No, there is talk of Dodd stepping down as senator. Rush seems to think that Geithner will be thrown under the bus or voluntarily step down and Dodd will take his place. It would still make sense to cover for Dodd if that is the case however.

The Obama Administration and US Congress are like bank robbers who get surrounded by the police. Once you are robbing a bank and taking hostages and the police show up, you are screwed. It becomes an ‘All-or-Nothing Scenerio.’ They’re screwed if they try to come clean and they’re screwed when the People vote and they’re even more screwed when the People march to DC. They simply failed to envision the speed with which information could be shared in 2010. You can’t spin a lie very long when the People can sit and watch the videos over and over and over again on YouTube. The alphabet news can’t really control information any more and I, for one, get a bit more irritated every day. I’m not really angry. Resolute would be a better description. There’s nothing like the cold reality check of a man who looks a thief in the eye and says, ‘Come on and take it, if you think you can.’ Burglars face this reality check often when they enter the home of a hear the familiar sound of ‘ka-chock.’

It would be nice to find one, just one lawyer out there who would not be afraid to take on something like this. Truth be told, we have every right to know what is going on, it was our money after all. I’m not even sure if calling for an audit of the fed would bring to light how the American people are getting screwed on a daily basis. There are so many loopholes put in place by lawyers to make obatining any information on anything these morons are doing impossible.
Like I said, it would be nice to find our “knight in shinning armour”.

This may be a little off topic but goes right to the heart of the government,Wall St.Execs.,and Bank Execs, knowing that what they are doing is to risky and could fail but not caring because it is not their money at risk and all the reward is the money they will get:

….Remember, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd are still in positions of power over our financial markets just like Geithner:

The GSEs had begun buying risky loans in 1993 to meet the “affordable housing” requirements established under congressional direction by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

Most of the damage was done from 2005 through 2007, when Fannie and Freddie were binging on risky mortgages. Back then, [Congressman Barney] Frank was the bartender, denying that there was any cause for concern, and claiming that he wanted to “roll the dice” on subsidized housing support. .

..

Bringing on risky mortgages…..sounds real familiar…
….like what Geithner was doing lowering the regulations on Banks so that they could take on risker moves.

But hey….no problem right…..after all it’s not their money….it’s the taxpayers!!!!

There is more to this ugly situation. New research by Edward Pinto, a former chief credit officer for Fannie Mae and a housing expert, has found that from the time Fannie and Freddie began buying risky loans as early as 1993, they routinely misrepresented the mortgages they were acquiring, reporting them as prime when they had characteristics that made them clearly subprime or Alt-A. …

Barney Frank and many other democrats called this type of talk ..”racist”…”and dumping on the little people” when it was brought up that Fannie/Freddie needed to be reeled in.

Class warfare…racial hustling……typical liberals.

But because of Fannie and Freddie’s mislabeling, there were millions more high-risk loans outstanding. That meant default rates as well as the actual losses after foreclosure were going to be outside all prior experience.

…

[The roots of the financial crisis] go back to 1993, when Fannie and Freddie began stocking up on subprime and other risky loans while reporting them as prime.

Funny how the democrats instituting these policies and defending this corruption in the name of looking out for the “poor” and the “little people” has in effect hurt them more than ever.

Where were the Republicans while this government run dice game was being played with our money….especially from 2005 thru 2007????:

For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs–and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO’s report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO’s report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay.

If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.
– John McCain, May 25, 2006

McCain took action in 2005 that might have helped us avoid the severity of this current financial crisis. Democrats also took action in 2005 and stopped McCain’s reforms.

Can’t a State AG file suit on behalf of the taxpayers in their own State? Under current law, AIG as a publicly held company MUST DISCLOSE ANYTHING MATERIAL TO THEIR BALANCE SHEET OR OPERATIONS. Any AIG shareholder, IMO, would have the standing to force this disclosure.

Some executives and politicians need LONG JAIL TERMS FOR THIS THEFT (for our own good! /sarc) FROM THE TAXPAYERS.

These guys are reminiscent of an old Steve Martin skit where Martin says “Welcome to Fred’s bank. I’ll just put your money here in the left front pocket of my white suit coat.”, or something along those lines.

The BO financial circus clowns won’t even tell you where the money went. I’d feel more comfortable putting my money in Fred’s Bank than giving it to “The most transparent administration ever”.

So here is how to combat it….just make anything up, claim that AIG used the money for high priced Hookers and drug parties (that may be more true then false), or that they have sponsored Iranian nuclear power plants…that many Senators were involved in those parties, and name some Senators.
Then they will file a lawsuit, and disclosure will have to be made.